Sunday, September 03, 2006

Over the Edge

A recent NY Times article titled, "The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack," talks about the growing number of lesbian women getting surgical operations to become men. This trend has alarmed some lesbians and

One of the concerns amongst lesbians is summed up as follows:

Barbara Price, a former festival producer, said the uneasiness has been “a big topic among lesbians for quite some time.”

“There are many people who look at what these young women are doing, and say to themselves, ‘Hey, by turning yourselves into men, don’t you realize you’re going over to the other side?’ ” she said. “We thought we were all supposed to be in this together.”

The article goes on detail some other personal elements of a few lesbians and a woman who became a man.

The reason why I find it interesting is because it points out how lesbians are finding it odd to deal with these transgender individuals. Some are very hostile to the idea. For instance:

IN the most recent season of the lesbian soap opera, “The L Word,” a new character named Moira announced to her friends that, through surgery and hormone therapy, she would soon be a new person named Max. Her news was not well received.“It just saddens me to see so many of our strong butch women giving up their womanhood to be a man,” one friend said.

The sentiment was a tamer version of what many other women wrote on lesbian blogs and Web sites in the weeks after the episode was broadcast last spring. Many called for the Max character to be killed off next season. One suggested dispatching him “by testosterone overdose.”

When I look at something like that, I say to myself… ‘its what happens when you’ve gone over the edge.’

In some ways, elements of contemporary society has pushed its boundaries to the edge of morality … and fallen off into the abyss.

At least some of those who were all about pushing those spheres, such as the gay and lesbian community, are now coming to realize that they don’t know how to deal with the newly emerging transgender community; and some are clearly hostile to it.

While larger society is having issues dealing with accepting the gay-lesbian community, they are unaware of the fact that if the gay-lesbian community is accepted – they may still have to accept this newly emerging transgender community. What to make of the transgender community?

Islam has strictly prohibits this behavior. In one narration, it is reported that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) cursed those men who imitate women and those women who imitate men. (Sahih al-Bukhari, 7/205)

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About Me

"It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself."